Background Plate

Now that I'm happy with the intaglio plates, I've turned my attentions to the larger base plate that I will use in conjunction with the two smaller copper plates.

A few years ago I came across a material called Versacel. I believe it's used in the sign business and reminds me of a dense form of styrafoam. It makes a great surface to print from because it is very rigid, can be easily incised with carving tools, drawn into with a ball point pen or sharp pointed tool, materials can be glued to its surface for collagraphic techniques, and objects can be embossed into it. The girdle pictured above was embossed onto the Versacel by running it through the press to pick up some of the details of the garment.

My intentions are to add various materials and textures to build up the surface as a collagraph. I plan to ink this as an intaglio with a surface relief roll and then place the copper plates on top to run the whole thing through the press as one. We'll see how this develops.

I purchase my Versacel from Industrial Safety Supply Co.,176 Newington Road, West Hartford, CT 06133-0720 Phone: 860-233-9881. It comes in 4' X 8' sheets but they cut it down to more manageable sizes to ship.